


European Postscript

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Prescription-verse [5]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-23
Updated: 2006-12-23
Packaged: 2018-11-12 11:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11161335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity
Summary: After the events of European Physick.  In their final European port of call, La Rochelle, the crew of theBlack Pearlreceive an unexpected visitor.





	European Postscript

The girl’s pretty; she wraps the bread up carefully in a piece of creased brown paper, and then, as she hands it to Joe, she _winks_ at him.

It’s warmer here in France than it was in London, but not warm enough to account for the fiery flush that Joe can feel in his face when she does that. He turns away, quick, ‘fore she can see and mock him for it.

Not fast enough for Jamie to miss it, though. He only gives Joe a laughing glance while they’re in the bakery, but soon as they’re outside he’s doubled over with it.

“Oh, mate, you’ve got to stop doing that! Oh, that was priceless!”

“Shut up,” says Joe. This isn’t something he’s been in the habit of saying to Jamie Martingale, but they’re getting to be pretty good mates now. He elbows Jamie, and Jamie elbows him back.

“Honestly, Joe, how’re you ever going to get yourself a girl if you turn into a tongue-tied beetroot whenever one looks at you?”

Who says I want a girl? “I dunno,” says Joe.

“You need to practice, you do. You should go back there, and—”

“I will not!” Just the thought of it! Imagine that, going back in and smiling and talking to her! Joe’s blush is rejuvenated by the mere idea. Jamie laughs again, laughs so hard that he trips on a cobblestone and Joe has to grab his arm to steady him.

Jamie’s laughing so much more, the last week or two. Almost back to his old self; as though he’s left the ghost of Indian Will behind him in England’s chilly mists. Which is good, isn’t it?

‘Course it is. Joe wouldn’t be any sort of friend if he didn’t want Jamie to be back to normal, to be out of that quiet sad time when he needed to hide away all those long hours in their warm little sleeping spot, just talking and dozing and not wanting any company save Joe’s. Much better now that Jamie’s getting out and about again, spending time with everybody and joking and laughing. ‘Course it is.

“Well then,” says Jamie, getting that mischievous twinkle in his eye, “if you won’t go back an’ practice with a girl, Joe, you sh’d at least try it wi’ _me_.”

Joe’s heart forgets to beat; he can’t even speak. What? _What?_ Does Jamie know how he…? “Dunno what you’re on about,” he mumbles.

“I mean, I’ll pretend to be a girl, an’ you can be you, and you can, you know. Pretend.”

“Oh! Oh.” Joe’s relieved. Or horribly disappointed. One of the two. “But that’s silly.”

“No it’s not. Come on, let’s eat on the steps over there.”

Jamie tows him across the busy quay and along to the steps that lead down to the pebbly beach. It’s sunny today; not warm like the Indies, like home, but a sight better than London. Joe’s not even wearing his gloves today, and Jamie’s cheeks are pink from sunshine and wind, instead of from chill; still, Joe sits as close to Jamie as he thinks he can get away with, telling him he’s a good wind-break. From here they can see the long wharf, and the Pearl tied up there ‘mongst all the other ships, flying some funny ensign Jack Sparrow claims is Eye-talian.

“Here you go,” says Jamie, briskly dismembering a small, crispy, greasy bird and handing Joe one of its spindly thighs.

“Ta.”

“What you need, see,” persists Jamie, “is to just practice talking to a girl, ‘cause if you say things out loud often enough, they’ll just come t’your mouth when you’re in front of a real one.”

“Oh, give it a rest.” Joe tears off the last of the flesh with his teeth (only a couple of mouthfuls on the whole damn thing) and tosses the bone into the waves.

“No! So I’m going to be the girl in the bread shop, alright?”

“But Jamie—”

“Shhh!” Jamie picks up the still-warm loaf. He twists so he’s facing Joe and hands it to him coyly, grinning at him and winking just as that girl’d done, up from underneath his eyelashes. His impossibly long, black eyelashes; and how bright and glittery his eyes are, like the sea, so vivid against that black and the milky wash of his skin. His smile widens, showing sharp eye-teeth, and he winks again.

Just the same as that girl. Only not. Because when _Jamie_ does it, the blood that rushes to Joe’s skin isn’t there ‘cause he’s embarrassed (though he is). It’s there ‘cause he’s, oh Lord, hard as wood in his breeches and nearly faint with lust.

“Say something,” hisses Jamie through smile-clenched teeth.

“I—I—I think this is stupid,” says Joe, sullen to hide his churning guts.

“Hmm, I think most girls would consider that a bad start. Though I am mostly going on guesswork an’ rumour. Come on! Try again.”

Oh, what the hell. Joe heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Nice day, ain’t it, miss.”

“Excellent!” declares Jamie, and then, batting his eyelashes, “It is indeed. Very warm for this time of year. I’m near afraid to go out in it!”

“Afraid? Why afraid?” Joe asks, confused.

“Don’t you know the sun does terrible things to a lady’s complexion? Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you; a lovely golden-skinned sailor-boy like you. I can see how you’ve been out in the sun, how it’s tanned your cheeks. An’ how there’s sunlight still caught here, in your hair.” More flirtatious than any girl Joe’s ever met, that’s for sure; Jamie catches a flyaway lock and twists it round his finger, smiling at Joe.

Joe blushes, but this is fun. Because he can say things to Jamie in this game, can’t he? Things he can’t say for real. Things like: “Be sure not to go out today then, for I’d hate to think of any harm coming to that pretty skin of yours. So pale, white as… as the sand on the beaches, back where I come from.”

“Are you far from home, then?”

“’Crossed the whole ocean to get here,” says Joe, with an expansive sweep of his arm.

“Oh my! What an adventure!” cries Jamie, putting a hand to his cheek. “To come such a long way!”

“And I’d travel it again, a thousand times, for the pleasure of your company,” declares Joe, getting quite carried away with himself, and Jamie giggles girlishly. He drops his hand and there are small, shiny marks on his cheek where his greasy fingers touched.

“Sir, you’re quite the—”

He falls silent as Joe reaches out impetuously and brushes his thumb across Jamie’s cheekbone, smearing the marks away. As if he’s caught it from Joe, Jamie colours a little.

“There was a, a smudge,” says Joe, gesturing at his own face.

Jamie holds out his hand, like a fine lady might do. “Much obliged,” he murmurs.

Joe, almost hypnotised, takes that hand in his own; and it’s no lady’s hand, it’s bony and strong and scrape-knuckled, but Joe brings it to his mouth; doesn’t take his eyes from Jamie’s but presses his lips gently against the back of it. Jamie’s skin smells of tar, and the familiar citrus tang of his sweat that’s all through the bed they share. Joe salivates, and the thought of putting out his tongue and licking that hand swells till it fills his skull. “My pleasure, ma’mzelle,” he manages to say, in a cracking voice.

Jamie swallows. “Right,” he says. “No more practice for you, Mr Henry; you know ‘zackly what you’re doing.”

That makes Joe smile, but he shakes his head. “I don’t, Jamie. I was just messing about, wasn’t I? I couldn’t really say any of that to a girl.”

“Why not? You can say it to me.”

“Well. That’s different, ain’t it.”

“No it’s not. How’s it different?”

“Because. Because…” Joe doesn’t know it, but he’s picked up a fair bit of the fine art of distraction and misdirection from his captain, and though this next utterance might not be the latter, it’s most definitely the former. “Anyway. I don’t think I like girls, anyway. Not like… you know.”

Jamie pauses mid-chew and his eyebrows go up. He swallows. “You don’t? But I remember when we was back west, what about…?”

Oh aye. That was all very well, but it wasn’t… wasn’t like _this_. Joe shrugs.

“So you like… blokes, then?”

Joe wishes the stone steps would split apart and eat him up. He shrugs again.

“It’s different, with blokes,” says Jamie thoughtfully, rubbing his hands on his breeches to clean ‘em and smiling as he stares out to sea.

“How?”

“Not so much of the hand-kissing,” says Jamie with a chuckle and a wink; he looks back at Joe with a whole new light in his eye. “Pass me that wine?”

“Thought you wanted to save that, for—”

“Aye, and now I want to drink it.” Jamie’s gesturing impatiently, but he’s grinning. He pulls out the cork and takes a swig. Fascinating, the way his throat moves when he swallows. Joe takes the bottle when it’s offered, hoping his own’ll look as enticing.

“Why?” he asks when he’s done, licking a drip of wine from the corner of his mouth.

“’Cause I’ve got something to celebrate, haven’t I?”

That’s one of the wickedest, happiest looks Joe’s ever seen on Jamie Martingale’s face, and he’s seen a fair few. He could die right now and go to Heaven happy.

(Though he might not be ‘llowed into Heaven if he dies with a cockstand like this, brought on by the thought of his best mate. Or indeed if he’s a fellow who’s admitted liking other blokes. Or if he’s sailed in a pirate crew, for that matter. Oh bugger it; he’s not going to Heaven, not a chance, but he’s enjoying being right here.)

“Celebrate?” he echoes. “Celebrate what?”

“Mate,” says Jamie, putting down the bottle and leaning forwards, elbows on his knees, looking up at Joe and smirking. “I’ve just discovered that the gorgeous warm body I’ve been sharin’ a sleeping space with—an’ don’t tell me it ain’t been getting a trifle toasty in there of late, but I don’t see either one of us movin’ out yet—might just be harbouring some of the same thoughts that I am. If that ain’t something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.”

“S-same thoughts?” Joe’s not blushing now. Feels, instead, as if all the blood in his body’s relocated south. He’s dizzy with delight. Doesn’t that mean that Jamie’s thinking—but no, it might not. “D’you mean, the not-keen-on-girls thing?” he asks cautiously.

“No.” Jamie’s shifting closer now. “I don’t just mean you an’ me, both liking fellows. I mean you an’ me, maybe… being keen on, on one another. I mean…” He bites his lip, the corners of his mouth quirking up and a rosy flush appearing on his neck. “I mean me thinking ‘bout what it’d be like to kiss you, Joe Henry, an’ you maybe wondering the same thing ‘bout me.”

Joe gapes like a fish as all his dreams seem to coalesce, to come rushing out of fiction and impossibility and reform themselves in the shape of Jamie Martingale’s curvy, smiling lips. Nothing comes out of his open mouth.

“So if a bloke—not a girl, a bloke—said that to you, what’d you say in reply?” murmurs Jamie.

“Not a word,” says Joe in a sudden, inspired rush. “I’d be too busy doing this.” And in a burst of bravery he takes Jamie’s face between his hands and kisses him, clumsily perhaps but with absolute delight, on the mouth.

There’s a glorious wet smacking noise as he lets him go. Joe’s filled with shock at his own daring, and awe at just how good it felt. Jamie’s lips were so warm, so smooth, they pressed back against his, and…

“I’m no girl.” Jamie’s smiling, grabbing Joe ‘round the waist. “If you’re goin’ to kiss me, Joe, you can do it like this…”

And then his mouth’s back on Joe’s, but it’s opening and Joe’s is too, and Jamie’s tongue is joining the stormcloud of sensations that’s swirling around Joe. The warm familiar smell of Jamie and the tickle of his windblown hair, the touch of his nose on Joe’s cheek, the clutching heat of his hands, the clean wet deliciousness of the inside of his mouth when Joe slips his own tongue in, tentative and thrilled, shaky with the sheer _badness_ of it; they’re all making him dizzy, he’s forgotten to breathe, and then—

“Well I wasn’t sure it was you, from a distance,” says a plainly disgusted voice from above them on the sea wall, “but now I’m fucking certain. So where’s my no-good brother, boys?”

*

“An absolute pleasure doin’ business with you, m’sieur,” Jack Sparrow exaggerates, and gives the sour-faced Frenchman an exuberant smile. It’s not till the fellow’s turned his back and shouldered his way out of the tavern that Sparrow lets his true feelings out, in a spitty welter of French that has some of the other patrons raising their eyebrows.

“Ah, come on,” says Jack, who’s tired of all this Negotiation. “It wasn’t that bad a deal. Anyway, we know where his cellars are, and we’re leaving on the morrow; couldn’t we just go over tonight, and, er, improve our average price per case?”

“No,” says Bill Turner repressively, though Sparrow narrows his eyes and purses his lips and tells Jack he’s irresistible when he’s larcenous.

“Besides,“ he adds, giving Jack a look so warm that he has to loosen his stock, “tomorrow we’re at sea again; don’t you want to take advantage of our last night in port, safe from the ravages of wind and wave and all those other constant interruptions?”

Jack scowls, still not comfortable discussing such matters in front of an Audience. Particularly one that’s recently taken leave of his wife and son and is in a notably peppery mood as a result. “I suppose it’s our last chance for a while to get some good solid shut-eye,” he says.

“That’s really not what I—”

“Aye, _shut-eye_ ,” agrees Turner. Sparrow rolls his eyes and winks unrepentantly at Jack. (Luckily it’s deeply gloomy in here and most of the other patrons are halfway to insensibility besides.) Jack hasn’t the heart to object to that wink, not when he’s truly looking forward to this last uninterrupted night more than anyone has a right to look forward to anything. Last night was lost to ‘em in a great vat of brandy, and this morning in the resultant headachy fog; it’s only now, taking a tail of the dog, that Jack’s really starting to feel a need to make up for all that wasted time. And the way Jack Sparrow’s half-smiling sideways at him, and drawing lazy, shiny curlicues with the spilled rum on the tabletop, isn’t helping. He shifts his leg a little, finds something warm to press against under the table.

“That’s _me_ ,” says Bootstrap wearily.

Jack’s saved from Sparrow’s cackles and his own mortification by the sudden— _very_ sudden—appearance of young Joe Henry, who comes flying ‘round the corner of the bar.

“Oh, Captain! Jamie sent me on ahead, but they’re right behind me!”

“Who?” Sparrow leaps to his feet. “Customsmen, Joe? Worse?”

“Not customs, no: Mr Shaftoe! The other Mr Shaftoe!”

What the—? Jack’s completely thrown. Bob? Bob’s here, in La Rochelle?

“I fear that may indeed come under the heading of _worse_ ,” mutters Jack Sparrow, sitting back down grumpily and pouring himself another drink. “Did he say what he wants, Joe?”

“No, sir; just that he’s come looking for, for _our_ Mr Shaftoe.”

“D’you think something’s happened, at home?” says Bootstrap, all concerned.

Jack sets his jaw as his brother’s tall silhouette appears in the doorway, accompanied by a guilty-looking Martingale. “Mr Shaftoe!” Sparrow calls, waving him over. “What a pleasant surprise!”

“It’s _Sergeant_ Shaftoe,” says Bob grimly, approaching the table. “Captain. Mr Turner. Jack, might I have a word?”

“I suppose that since you’ve taken the considerable trouble of crossing half the Continent to hunt me down, I can grant you that,” says Jack. “What’s up? Are the boys alright?”

“Fine.”

“Clodagh? Maeve?”

“Fine.”

“You? You don’t appear to be on the verge of horrid expiry. In fact you seem to be in fine fettle, if a little travel-stained. Have you decided to run away to sea with us, is that it?”

“Hardly,” says Bob.

“What a pity,” puts in Jack Sparrow. “Oh well. Never mind. Pull up a pew, Sergeant.” He waves a hand at Henry and Martingale, lurking behind the settle. “You two can bugger off, you’ve done your bit. Thank you _so_ much for bringing our visitor straight to us.”

“I couldn’t help it!” cries Martingale. “He said he’d just sit at the foot of the gangplank and wait for you, else!”

Sparrow gives him a wide-eyed look. “What an odd thing for you to say, Mr Martingale. Oh—did you think I was being facetious in my thanks? Absolutely not. I’m delighted to see Mr, I mean Sergeant, Shaftoe again. He did after all break me out of Newgate.”

“I did,” says Bob, giving Jack a steely glare. “Though that was before I was fully apprised of your relationship with my brother here.”

“ _What?_ ” Jack demands, rather loudly. Bob brings out the volume in him, he just can’t help it. “Have you followed me all the way to bloody France just to whinge about—”

Bob slams his palm down on the table so hard that Jack’s words die in his throat.

“I have followed you, Jack, because the moment I got home and saw your boys’ faces I realised just what a stupid fucking thing it is that you’re doing. I can put up with a lot from you, I swear, but this time you’re going too far.”

Sparrow flinches theatrickally. “I really think you should go away now,” he whispers to Henry and Martingale, who’re wide-eyed at the prospect of conflict, and they reluctantly—and rather slowly—leave.

It’s perfectly enraging. Jack tries to marshall his anger. “That ain’t what you said in London, when I told you,” he says, relatively levelly. “You hardly said a word. You had your bloody chance to object, an’ you didn’t. So, Bob, my final word on the matter is: fuck off.”

“I didn’t realise all its implications in a moment, Jack. It took me a while.”

“’Scuse me,” says Bill Turner, who’s trapped in his seat by the looming Bob. “I think I’ll head back, eh? Family business, this. Come on, Jack, let’s leave these two to sort it out.” He gets to his feet.

“Oh no you don’t,” snaps Bob, in his Sergeantiest voice, and Bootstrap sits right back down again. “You’re the only voice of sanity I can see around here, Mr Turner. So why d’you stand by and let this, this, this—”

“I’d choose your words with care, if I were you,” says Jack Sparrow blandly to the ceiling.

“—this _unnaturalness_ continue under your very nose?”

“It ain’t my life,” says Bill firmly. “Nor my immortal soul. Which is in enough trouble of its own, quite frankly. None o’ my concern, what they choose to do.”

“Fence-sitter,” Bob summarises bitterly.

“Better than being a long-nosed busybody,” says Jack, finding his tongue again; it’s been hidden underneath the pile of unutterable shame that’s smothered him at the thought of having his brother turn up with the apparent intention of _rescuing_ him. “I repeat: fuck off, Bob. And that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.”

“No it ain’t,” Bob tells him, folding his arms.

“Um… I’m pretty sure it is, Bob.”

“I’ve brought the boys with me,” says Bob flatly. “If you’re so happy with this decision of yours, then you can come and share the news with them.”

To deal with the double horrors of his sons’ presence and the thought of trying to explain his Dreadful Vice to them, Jack’s forced to take a very large drink. It’s only when he puts his mug down that he notices Jack Sparrow’s doing the same, not to mention Bill Turner. Jimmy and Danny seem to have that effect on people.

“I don’t think,” he says firmly, “that would be an appropriate parental decision.”

Bob takes a seat then, and leans forward across the table with a triumphant air, as if he’s about to win the argument with some crushing logical blow. “If you can’t mention it to the boys,” he says, tapping a finger on the tabletop to illustrate his point, “then you know it’s wrong, Jack Shaftoe. You _know_ it is.”

“There are a lot of things I wouldn’t mention to the boys, Bob. Our entire summer in Belgium, for one.”

“Bill here keeps _barrelfuls_ of secrets from his spawn,” notes Sparrow helpfully.

“Then I’ll have to tell them myself,” says Bob.

“Go ahead, if you feel you must,” says Jack, though it’s hard to make himself form the words. Imagine it! He’d never be able to look those children in the face again. But this is clearly a situation that calls for ultimata. Jack has never lost a game of chicken to Bob, ever. His brother scowls at him, and Jack scowls right back.

Two dark, bony, long-nailed fingers appear above Bob’s head, making a rabbit-ears sign. Jack blinks and rubs his eyes, and then grins in acknowledgement of the Imp’s reappearance.

“It’s no smiling matter, Jack! It’ll get you killed, and damned besides.”

The Imp clambers onto the table, lifts its tail, and presents its buttocks to Bob. There’s a sulphurous whiff.

*

Jack Sparrow’s head jerks up. What is Beelzebub’s name is that disgusting smell? Rotten eggs? He wrinkles his nose and Shaftoe looks at him in surprise.

“Can’t you smell that?” says Jack.

“Smell what?” says Bill. “No,” snaps Bob, without looking at him. Shaftoe opens his eyes innocently wide, a sure sign that he’s about to fib, and shakes his head.

Jack drops it. More important things to worry about. “Sergeant, if I may: will you stop being so damnably bumptious? Like Bill said, it ain’t anyone’s business but ours.”

Bob continues with his approach of ignoring Jack completely, something which Jack is not used to at all in life. It’s most discomforting. To his brother, he says, “Won’t you just stop this madness, and come home with me? I told you before, Jack, I can put in a word with John Churchill; the regiment can always do with a man like you.”

“A man like me, eh?” echoes Jack Shaftoe, grinning and folding his arms as he leans back in his chair, tilting on its back legs. “What’s that mean, then? A vagabond?”

“You’ve enough military training behind you. I know you can fight.”

“Mmm. Can’t he just,” murmurs Jack, mentally shuffling through a series of carefully cultivated and excessively violent memories which reliably give him an unquenchable cockstand. Oh dear yes, very reliably. He shifts in his seat.

“A thief?” says Jack Shaftoe.

Bob shrugs. “You’re only that when the need arises, Jack. And there’ll be no need.”

“A murderer?”

“Don’t tell me,” says Bob, holding up his hand, “an’ I won’t know. You’ll be a soldier, Jack. We’ve all killed.”

“So it’s alright for me to be all those things?” says Shaftoe innocently.

“Not alright, no. But… we can put it behind us,” Bob says, gritting his teeth.

“And, ooh, mustn’t forget: I’m a pirate too, how’s that?”

“I don’t care, Jack.”

Jack Shaftoe holds up a hand a counts off his sins on his fingers. “So: vagabond, thief, murderer, pirate, you can handle.”

“You’re my _brother_ , underneath ‘em all.”

Shaftoe leans forward and counts off his final sin on his thumb, right under Bob’s nose. “But you can’t stand _sodomite_ , eh, Bob? That one’s beyond the pale? I can lie and rob and even kill, but I can’t get anywhere near another fellow’s arse. That’s what you’re telling me?”

Jack is so utterly, utterly heartened by Shaftoe’s straightforward admission of the state of things that he interjects to query, perhaps ill-advisedly, whether _catamite_ counts as the same sin, or is a different one altogether.

Being glared at so violently by _two_ Shaftoes is rather intimidating. Jack makes a moue and subsides.

“Yes, Jack,” says Bob to his brother, “that’s what I’m telling you. I know you’re a, a curious fellow. And I can see he’s…” Bob waves a hand in Jack’s direction. “He’s not boring, any rate. But really, Jack. Think of your boys. You don’t want to stay too long on this path. You could lose everything. Tell him, Turner.”

Bootstrap takes a pull at his drink. “Don’t look at me,” he says.

Bob’s right, Bootstrap is a bloody fence-sitter. Have to have a word with him about that, later.

“P’rhaps I could lose everything,” says Jack Shaftoe. His blue eyes have gone dark, and a bit sad; not an expression Jack’s ever seen on him before. Is bloody dour, tedious, unimaginative Bob Shaftoe planting seeds of doubt and dismay in his brother’s bright and vivid heart? Is he poisoning what they’ve got, the two of ‘em? If he has, oh, if he has, and Jack Shaftoe leaves… If he has, then Jack Sparrow will hunt him down and make him suffer for it. He’ll lock him up in somewhere small and dark, keep him there with rats and spiders, solitary and lonely and unloved, till he can feel the same pain that Jack’ll be feeling, and then he’ll—

Jack’s immensely enjoyable homicidal reverie is interrupted as Jack Shaftoe stands suddenly.

“Thing is, Bob,” says Shaftoe, “I’d gladly lose everything I ever had and ever will have, if it meant keeping Jack Sparrow by my side. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose the boys. I’druther they din’t hear of it till they’re old enough to maybe understand. But if you want to tell ‘em, I can’t stop you. So where are they? I should like to pay ‘em a last visit. We’re sailing tomorrow.”

His chin is set in a stubborn line, the muscles of his jaw clenching in a way that Jack knows beyond doubt is a sign of total immovability. Bob sighs, as if he knows it too. “That’s the way it is, is it?”

“It is,” says Shaftoe firmly.

Jack wonders whether there’s such a thing as fatal smugness, because he’s feeling a definite surfeit of that emotion right now. He smiles at Bob. Smugly.

“The boys ain’t here,” says Bob. “I made that up.”

“What?” cries Shaftoe (though Jack suspects he’s secretly relieved as all hell). He sits down. “Bastard,” he says to Bob. “So, if we’ve got all that nonsense out of the way, will you have a drink with us, brother?”

Much, much later that night, Bob corners Jack and tells him in a slurry voice that he’d best look out for Jack Shaftoe, or the entire regiment of the Black Torrent Guards will come hunt him down and make him regret it. Jack’s perversely touched.

Much, much, _much_ later that night, Jack (from a prone position behind the settle, where he is resting and regrouping for the next round) hears Bob say to his brother, “But really, Jack, no, really: _catamite?_ ”

“Oh, Bob,” says Jack Shaftoe sympathetically. “You’ve got no idea mate. None at all.”

Not long after that, Jack’s woken by Shaftoe hauling him upright; whispering in his ear, “Come on, Jack. Let’s not waste our last night in port, eh?”

*

All the way back to the ship, Joe’s walked with his hands in his pockets, head down, ploughing ahead and pushing through the crowds without a single look in Jamie’s direction. Not a smile, not a glance, not an accidentally-on-purpose collision, none of the things that Joe usually does. For the first few minutes of it, Jamie’d been hurt; but by the time they reach the _Pearl_ , hurt’s segued into something spikier, angrier. Damn’d if Jamie Martingale’s taking the silent treatment from a whelp like Joe Henry.

Seeing Rachid, one of the new blokes, about to be fleeced by Gill and Picken in a game of cards—Jamie’d know that evil-intentioned grin of Mick’s anywhere—he doesn’t say a word to Joe Henry. Just stalks over and invites himself into the game. Not sure whether he does so to give Rachid a fighting chance, or to make sure he’s got none at all.

He sits himself down on the warm black deck and flicks a quick, blank-faced glance over his shoulder at Joe; he’s standing by the gangplank, all forlorn and silent. Jamie sets his teeth and turns back to the game.

No point, is there? If Joe’s so unsure about it all. If one word from Jack Shaftoe’s brother can turn him speechless and sullen and ‘shamed. Damned if Jamie’s going to push it, if it ain’t what Joe wants.

But it’s such a damnable _pity_. Oh, that kiss, down on the steps! Joe’s hot trembly hands on Jamie’s face, the way he sucked in that great deep breath at the touch of Jamie’s tongue!

The way he jumped like a frightened rabbit at the sound of Bob Shaftoe’s contemptuous voice, and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, as though he was wiping away dirt and sin. The way he’s not met Jamie’s eyes, since.

Jamie’s head’s not in the game at all. No wonder he loses so badly. Still. Rachid’ll be his mate now, for certain sure.

He doesn’t see Joe all evening, isn’t really sure what do about his accommodations for the night. Should he find himself a new place to bunk down? Prob’ly, he figures. Too awkward, else.

After dark he ducks into their little sleeping nook, lanthorn in hand, to gather up his things; and there’s Joe in bed already, his blue eyes huge and startled in the light as he pushes himself up onto his elbows.

“Jamie!”

“Don’t panic.” Jamie tries not to be gruff. “I’m just here to get my gear.”

“Oh,” says Joe, and his transparent dismay is equal parts frustrating and disarming.

“What, now you don’t want me to go?”

“I never wanted you to go!”

“Then what in hell was up your arse this afternoon?” snaps Jamie, regretting his choice of words as soon as they’re spoken.

Joe sits up, and the blanket falls away from his wide, bony shoulders. “You know,” he says vaguely. “Mr Shaftoe, an’ all that.”

Jamie sighs and hangs up the lanthorn. He sits himself down on their pallet, and Joe moves over to give him more room.

“If it troubles you, all those things he said,” Jamie says, “then we can go back to how things were, Joe. I’ll not bother you.” He hopes that’s true. Joe’s smooth, pale-gold skin; the sweep of his hair over his shoulder as he moves; the way he bites at his lip; Christ, those things’ll make it hard.

“But you can’t,” says Joe.

“Can’t what?”

“You can’t not bother me, Jamie. You just _do_ bother me.” He pinks, and smiles uncertainly. “You bother me a lot.”

“I do?”

“You do. So…” Joe shifts, and to Jamie’s amazement the blanket slips lower, and there’s no way in hell Joe Henry’s got his breeches on under there, nor his drawers neither. There’s pale-skinned hip and the start of a swell of muscle. Jamie’s blood surges. “So you might as well bother me prop’ly,” says Joe all in a rush.

Nothing Jamie wants to do more than bother the bejeezus out of Joe Henry. But… “What about earlier, then?”

“I was being an idjit,” says Joe. “I was, I was childish. I thought, Jamie, I thought about it; and there ain’t any way in the world that Jack Shaftoe’s going to listen to his brother, is there? Ain’t any chance he’s goin’ to give up the Captain.”

Jamie laughs at the mere thought of it. “No.”

“So why sh’d I listen to him, then? He’s just wrong, ain’t he. An’ before, when we were… when you were…”

Jamie leans back against the bulkhead, feeling a slow smile slide over him, over his mouth and down his spine and warmly all the way to his groin. “When I was… kissing you, Joe?”

Joe’s lips are parted, plump and rosy, and there’s a greedy gleam in his eyes. “It was good,” he says. “Really good, Jamie.”

Jamie starts to unbutton his weskit, to tug at his shirt laces. “Good enough to do it again?” he murmurs, and Joe nods, his thick straw-coloured hair falling in his eyes with the force of it. “Come here then. And—” (as Joe, blanket clutched about his waist, starts to scramble closer) “—leave that blanket, eh?”

Joe halts, and flushes all down his throat. “But—that is, I’m not—”

“I know it, Joe. You’re bare under there. And I want to see it. To see you.”

The boy stills, and Jamie fears for a moment that he’s pushed it too far. That Joe’s not ready, not yet, to play the harlot for him. But he’s wrong. Joe Henry kneels up, and lets the blanket fall.

Ah, Christ. So different to Will, so different. Pale and lean and sweet and new, but just as long-limbed and wide-shouldered. Every thought that Joe has flickers across his face, his skin, like bright-flagged signals. He’s shy, but bold; afeard, but so full of wanting.

“Anything you w-want,” says Joe. “Anything, I’d give you. Do for you, Jamie.”

Jamie swallows. He can think of several things he wants, very very badly. But best start small.

“I want a kiss,” he says. “A kiss from you.”

Shuffling closer, Joe knees between Jamie’s thighs; slowly, he leans forward and puts his mouth to Jamie’s. Jamie opens his mouth and Joe sighs into it, trembling. Jamie runs his palms slowly down Joe’s spine, round his waist; over his thighs, and two-handed, strokes along the length of Joe’s thumpingly hard prick. Keening in his throat, Joe presses closer, pulling Jamie’s shirt from his breeches and reaching up and under, touching, exploring, shivering against him.

“You want me bare, too?” Jamie asks, in between licks and kisses, and Joe nods frantically, scrabbling at buttons. Jamie laughs and pushes him away, onto his back; Joe lies there, propped on his elbows, knees bent and spread, staring as Jamie stands over him and takes off every stitch of his clothing.

“Oh, Lord,” breathes Joe when Jamie’s naked at last; he gets to his knees and puts his arms around Jamie, pressing his cheek into Jamie’s belly. Hot breath gusts against Jamie’s hip, and his yard twitches against Joe’s neck. “Oh, Jamie. Oh, Lord.”

Take that, Sergeant Shaftoe.

*

It’s been a long day and a longer night, and Jack Shaftoe hadn’t really planned on drinking _quite_ that much rum; but the walk back to the ship in the chill midnight air has woken most of him, and the parts of him that weren’t roused by that are definitely being roused, now, by the sight of Jack Sparrow taking off his coat and boots and hat and winking over his shoulder as he latches the door.

“Gave me a bit of a fright, there,” says Sparrow, turning and lounging against the blackened doorframe. “Thought you might take ol’ Bob’s advice to heart, and up and leave me.”

“Pshaw! Pay attention, Sparrow; when’ve I ever done as Bob recommended?”

“Never, so far as I’m aware. But on the other hand, you are quite _immensely_ perverse; you might take it into your head to agree with him, just to be contrary to yourself.”

“I’m a simple man, me,” Jack declares. “You’re overcomplicating matters.”

“Simplify ‘em for me, then,” says Sparrow, tilting his head back and looking at Jack through lowered lashes. His hands are hidden in the small of his back, his legs crossed at the ankle; he tilts his hips, demonstrating the bulge in his breeches. Jack salivates madly. Oh, Bob. Poor misguided Bob. How could anyone give this up? Eh?

Jack pulls his shirt over his head before taking the two steps that’ll put him hard up against Jack Sparrow, whose smile is utterly inflammatory (as if Jack required further inflammation). “Simple as this,” Jack murmurs, his lips brushing Sparrow’s with feather-light touches as he speaks. “My mouth on your mouth. My body on your body. My pleasure an’ your pleasure.”

“But think about _Bob_ , mate.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Do we have to?”

“No, no. I mean, think about what would annoy him the very very most. What d’you think it is that we do that’d really drive him to distraction? ‘Cause whatever it is, I think we should do it tonight, in his honour.”

“Oh _yes_ ,” says Jack happily, grinding his hips against the pirate’s and getting a groaning sigh in return. “I bet he’d be disgusted by the thought of how much I want to stick my tongue in your mouth, Jack.”

After several minutes of disgusting Bob, they’re both shirtless and a lot warmer.

“I’m sure your dear brother would be offended by that,” says Sparrow, breaking away from Jack’s clutches, “but really, mate, he’s not going to be truly appalled till we’re both naked.”

“You make a valid observation,” says Jack, rapidly rectifying the situation. “There: I think that’s better. Mmm,” he adds, as Sparrow’s hands wander over his arse and their yards slide against one another, “a lot better.”

“Small beer,” says Sparrow dismissively. “Come on, Jack, what’d really wind him up?”

Jack pushes the other man against the bulkhead, and drops to his knees, grinning upwards. “The mere idea of this,” he declares, “must give Bob conniptions.” And he runs his tongue up the silky length of Jack Sparrow’s cock, licking and laving and then sucking, hard. Sparrow twists his long fingers into Jack’s hair, and laughs and gasps. “Bet he hates the thought,” he mutters, as he cants his hips, “of his brother’s mouth being fucked. By a pirate. By _me_.”

Jack gives Bob conniptions for quite some time, accompanied by a litany of piratical appreciation.

“But oh, Jack, he can’t know how much I love it,” Jack Sparrow sighs. “Can’t know how glorious you look with your mouth round me, or the way your cheeks hollow when you—unh—when you suck me like that. Oh fuck Jack, oh—” And he slams a fist against the wall and throws his head back, his thighs trembling.

Jack, wickedly, withdraws; he bites gently at Sparrow’s hip and says, “But you know what he’d hate the most, don’t you? Eh?”

“I think I do, Jack. Pass me the grease, will you?”

“No,” says Jack, standing up and licking wetly at Sparrow’s neck, his jaw, his cheek, his nose. “Lick me.”

“Mmmm… lick you?”

“Put your tongue in me. Make me good and slick with your spit, before you do the deed. In Bob’s honour, eh?”

You can never be too dirty for Jack Sparrow. He kisses Jack, hard and deep, and then walks him over to the table and bends him over it. Jack stands wide-legged, his elbows on the table; Sparrow’s close behind him, kissing his way down Jack’s spine.

“No bed?” Jack asks.

“Bed wouldn’t disturb him nearly as much,” says Sparrow happily, “as the thought of you being buggered bent over the table, Jack.” He kneels down and spreads Jack’s buttocks apart, and then there’s a hot wet tongue sliding back along the root of Jack’s cock, sliding back sliding back and pressing in and Jack groans and convulses. Sparrow’s hand wraps around Jack’s weeping prick and Jack thrusts into it, the table groaning as it knocks against the bulkhead. That tongue swirls and sweeps and pushes and curls and Jack’s giddy with pleasure. Oh Bob, you fuckin’ _idiot_ , how could you think that I’d… there’s a finger there as well as a tongue. Jack groans at the stretch, the oddity of it that still surprises him, every time; Sparrow reaches further, presses his fingertip against different flesh and makes Jack shiver.

“Come on, Sparrow. Let’s really piss him off. Fuck me. Fuck me now, and hard, and deep. Come on! Give it to me!”

The clutch of Jack Sparrow’s fingers on his hips is nearly painful. Jack will bruise. The pirate stands and slides his cock along the slickened valley. He leans over Jack and mutters in his ear, “Nice touch, Jack: begging for it, oh yes, I’d lay that’ll have him writhing.”

Jack grins a bright and wild grin and twists his head, awkwardly, till he can steal a quick messy kiss. “So will that,” he says.

“So will this,” says Jack Sparrow, and holds Jack still as he slowly and surely pushes his cock up Jack’s arse.

*

The not-very-distant thumping is rhythmic and incessant; the groans and muffled blasphemies are less regular but even more disturbing. From another direction, down in the guts of the ship somewhere, a gaspy, sobbing sound of shock and delight echoes upward.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” mutters Bob Shaftoe, from the hammock he’s slung in Bill Turner’s small cabin.

“Here,” says Bill kindly, rummaging under his pillow and then offering Bob two small, soft balls of wax. “These’ll help.”

Bob eyes them dubiously. “I’ll be alright,” he says. “It’ll stop in a minute.”

Bill Turner snorts. “You reckon?” The earplugs are pressed into Bob’s hand. “Just take the damn things, Sergeant.”

Bob’s pleased to have ‘em, in the end.


End file.
